This is such a ridiculously easy recipe to make that I wondered should I even bother with writing out the recipe. From the rapturous murmurs of “Mmmm” and stomach rubbing afterwards from my husband its probably worth the small bother. Its very easy and great for hot weather and its suitable for vegetarians and vegans too. It can also be made ahead of time, in fact its better made a couple of days ahead so that the sweetness penetrates the tofu. In fact you couldn’t ask for easier or more invigorating on a day where the sun beats down heavily and your limbs are feeling tired.
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October 10, 2007
by Not Quite Nigella
A Nigella devotee’s first reaction to receiving a lovely bunch of Lavender from a visiting friend is not “Lovely, I must put it in a vase over there”. Its more “Oooh great, I’m going to make the Nigella’s Lavender Trust cupcakes!” And that’s exactly what I did with my bunch. I used half of it to make the cupcakes and the rest I popped into an airtight container with some caster sugar so that I could make some more cupcakes later with some lavender sugar.
I didn’t have any royal icing handy so I just mixed some icing sugar with some water and played with the proportions of food dye to produce something not really that close to the lovely lavender colour Nigella has in her pictures. You will also need to cut the tops off with a sharp knife to produce the gorgeously flat icing in her pictures which I can see that I definitely did not achieve. Ah well, they tasted lovely!
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October 9, 2007
by Not Quite Nigella
Yes, I’m one of those people who have always wished for a restaurant that serves Yum Cha at night. Mainly for greed related reasons: I can’t eat as much for lunch as dinner so it allows me maximum opportunity for dumpling consumption. So when my father casually mentioned that Rockdale R.S.L. Club serves Yum Cha for dinner on Wednesday nights, I picked up the phone and booked for the coming Wednesday. There are no trolleys unfortunately but you can order off the menu.
The restaurant is fairly modern with new furnishings and at 7pm there are only 3 other tables so we needn’t have booked (Bingo Night in the next room seems to be where the club patrons are at). We have a look at the Yum Cha picture menu and there is a fairly wide selection of dishes with steamed and fried dumpling lovers well catered for.
Service is never a strongpoint at Chinese restaurants and brusque is usually the word I’d use to describe it. Tonight is no exception, it appears that we need to order from the curt older gentleman and not the courteous younger waiter. There are no prices on the menu so we enquire about what the prices are and he doesn’t seem too impressed. After he consults with the cashier, it seems that items range from $4.40 to over $10 for the BBQ/larger items which is fairly standard for Sydney. There are some dishes that we tried to order but they have run out of: the fried taro pastry, deep fried mince pork dumplings and the steamed prawn rice roll.
The Gai Larn in Oyster sauce ($10.80) is the first to arrive and it is succulent and tender without a trace of stringyness or toughness. The sauce is delicious and I am very glad we’ve had our serve of veggies.
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October 8, 2007
by Not Quite Nigella
Every couples of months or so, we get together with friends to have what we informally call one of our “World Food Nights”. This entails cooking the cuisine from the nominated country, dressing up in national clothing and listening to music from that country. So far the countries we have subjected to this treatment are: England, Germany, Sweden, and Southern USA (where we’ve made good use of Nigella’s “Trashy” chapter in Nigella Bites). Kazakhstan was ruled out as we couldn’t acquire any of the ingredients.
We decided that an Indian night was in order and just the ticket for some warming curries. We provided the booja mix (2 kinds), Dahl, home made Roti Paratha and a “Bollywood Glamour” Chai cocktail. Another couple brought Butter chicken, Raita, an Indian version of Twisties, Onion Paratha and Pappadums while another couple brought rice, a large box of sweets and some samosas from Maya Indian Sweets. The sweets were rich and interesting and I don’t think I’ve come across an Indian dessert or sweet that I haven’t liked. The sweet selection deserves a separate post of its own detailing each and every flavour.
Armed with some borrowed saris from kind friends and sister in laws and a lot of safety pins, we wrapped and wrapped and wrapped ourselves up in our saris in what we hoped was an accurate approximation of a sari (we did follow instructions but its hard!). Although this time we didn’t have any Indian music, the combination of food, incense scented candles, Indian themed flatware, Indian cushions, bowls and bindis adorning our foreheads was, what we hoped, an authentic salute to India.
And I’ll spare you the pics of us in costume!
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October 7, 2007
by Not Quite Nigella
Call it fate or kismet but our Sugar Hit at the Sheraton at the Park was meant to be. We could just tell from the park we got right outside the hotel that the universe was sating our sweet tooths. As its a Saturday night, they’re holding the Sugar Hit in the ground floor Gallery Tea Lounge, one of my favourite afternoon tea places. There are a few other tables but its not overcrowded as its 9.15pm and the Sugar Hit has just commenced..
Shortly after we order our triple decker Sugar Hits, the Brown Brother Orange Muscat & Flora Dessert wines arrive, a sweet fruity concoction heavily fragrant with pears. The Sheraton’s Sugar Hit offering comprises of: Baked basil scented Alaska, rose wine poached pear and Sheraton signature vanilla bean Creme Brulee. The basil scented alaska is what has caught my eye as I’ve seen basil used is some desserts but have never had the opportunity to try it first hand.
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October 6, 2007
by Not Quite Nigella
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